Kneecap vow to 'beat Government for second time in court' at biggest ever gig
Irish rap trio Kneecap have vowed that next month will see "the second time they have beat the British Government in court" while performing their largest gig to date.
The 45,000-strong crowd in Finsbury Park, London watched the West Belfast trio walk on in front of a screen that said "Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people".
They were supporting Irish band Fontaines D.C. People echoed the group's chants when they repeated the "f*** Keir Starmer" and "you're just a s*** Jeremy Corbyn" comments made at Glastonbury the previous weekend.
Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs as Mo Chara, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court earlier this month charged with a terror offence and will return next month.
Fellow member Naoise O Caireallain, who uses the stage name Moglai Bap, said "if anyone's free on the 20th of August, you wanna go to the court and support Mo Chara" before shouting "free Mo Chara, free, free Mo Chara".
O hAnnaidh responded: "I appreciate it, the 20th of August is going to be the second time Kneecap have beat the British Government in court – in their own court, on their own terms, and we're going to beat them for the second time. I tell you what, there is nothing like embarrassing the British Government."
Last year Kneecap won a discrimination challenge over a decision by former business secretary Kemi Badenoch to refuse them a £14,250 funding award.
The UK Government conceded it was "unlawful" after the band launched legal action claiming the decision to refuse the grant discriminated against them on grounds of nationality and political opinion.
It was agreed that the £14,250 sum would be paid by the Government to the group.
Last month, Kneecap were pulled from the TRNSMT line-up with Police Scotland citing "safety concerns". The force previously said the performance, due to take place on July 11, would require "a significant policing operation".
Kneecap said they had played in Glasgow "many times with no issues - ever," adding: "Make of that what you will".
The trio will play Glasgow's O2 Academy on Tuesday, July 8 instead.
During the Finsbury Park performance, the group addressed the war in Gaza, which is a recurring theme of their shows.
"I understand that it's almost inhumane that I'm thinking of new things to say on stage during a genocide, for sound bites," O hAnnaidh said.
"It's beyond words now, like, we always used to say obviously they're being bombed from the skies with nowhere to go, but it's beyond that now.
"They've been being starved for a few months on end, and not only that, the areas that they have set up, to collect aid and food, have turned into killing fields and they're killing hundreds a day trying to collect food."
He added: "It doesn't matter how big or small our audience is, Kneecap will always use the platform for talking about this."
As of mid-June, more than 55,000 Palestinians had been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza health officials said.
The UN human rights office has recorded 613 killings near humanitarian convoys and at aid distribution points in Gaza run by an Israeli-backed American organisation since it began operations in late May.
On Friday its spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the rights office was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings, but "it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points" operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The GHF has denied any serious injuries or deaths on its sites and says shootings outside their immediate vicinity are under the purview of Israel's military.
The Israeli military has said previously it fires warning shots to control crowds or at Palestinians who approach its troops.
Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community!
Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today.
You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland.
No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team.
All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in!
If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'.
We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like.
To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Evening Standard
2 hours ago
- Evening Standard
Kneecap at Finsbury Park: 'infamy doesn't weigh heavily on them'
'If anybody is free on the 20th August, go to the court and support Mo Chara', says Moglai Bap, before chants of 'free Mo Chara' erupt from the crowd. 'There's nothing like embarrassing the British Government…you can never beat the Irish!' he adds. What follows is Guilty Conscience, a song with a chorus about masturbation, but Mo Chara is quick to follow a moment of levity with an impassioned speech about the importance of continuing to speak about the Palestinian people. 'It's something we all care about and sometimes it feels helpless because there's nothing we can do, but what's important right now is there's gonna be videos going around Gaza and the West Bank, and morale is a huge thing…we're on the right side of history, lads.'
Daily Mirror
2 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Axing two-child benefit limit still on table but 'harder' after welfare U-turn
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson insisted the Government will 'continue to look at every lever to lift children out of poverty' after reports plans to scrap two child limit 'dead' Scrapping the two-child benefit limit remains on the table - but last week's welfare U-turn will make it harder, a top minister has said. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson insisted the Government was "looking at every lever and we'll continue to look at every lever to lift children out of poverty". But she said it would be more difficult to find the money to axe the austerity-era measure after Keir Starmer was forced to gut his planned disability benefit cuts to see off a Labour revolt. The welfare climbdown has left a £5billion hole in Rachel Reeves's spending plans. Ms Phillipson, who is working on a long-awaited child poverty strategy, distanced herself from reports that plans to scrap the two-child limit were now "dead in the water". Many Labour MPs oppose the cap, which could become a new focal point for tensions between backbenchers and Downing Street. The policy, introduced in 2017, restricts claims for Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit to the first two children. About 1.6 million children live in households affected by it, which would cost around £3.4billion a year to lift. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that getting rid of the cap would lift 500,000 children out of relative poverty. Asked if the Government could no longer afford to scrap it, she told the BBC: "We're looking at every lever, we will continue to look at every lever to lift children out of poverty. It will be the moral mission of this Labour government, to lift children out of poverty." But she said there was a cost to the decision to shelve plans to restrict eligibility for the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) until after a review next year. Ms Phillipson said: "The decisions that have been taken in the last week do make decisions, future decisions harder. But all of that said, we will look at this collectively in terms of all of the ways that we can lift children out of poverty." She said she was "not going to pretend that it hasn't been a tough or a challenging week" and acknowledged that the Government botched its handling of the welfare reforms. "What the Prime Minister has said, and what I also believe, is that what we set out, we pushed ahead too fast, we didn't listen enough to people, including, I would say, including to lots of people who had concerns about the nature of that change," she said.
Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Telegraph
Starmer has revealed himself to be the most politically hopeless PM of my lifetime
We are told that it was 'personal' reasons which caused Rachel Reeves to weep at Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday. No doubt that is true. But when a prominent person weeps on a public occasion, the tears are prompted by a confluence of the personal and the political. Whatever upset Ms Reeves felt was surely compounded by her desperate and isolated political situation following the collapse of the Government's welfare reform Bill. The first Rachel wept, as is recorded in the Old Testament Book of Jeremiah. She was weeping for her children, but hers were public tears too: she was revered as the wife of the patriarch Jacob and mother of Joseph. God told her: 'Refrain thy voice from weeping and thine ears from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded.' It has to be said that Sir Keir Starmer was rather less generous to his Rachel than was the Almighty to the Mother of Israel. When, across the floor of the House, Kemi Badenoch pointed out to him that his Chancellor 'looks absolutely miserable', he did not turn round to comfort or even to check. Nor did he take up the Leader of the Opposition's invitation to confirm Ms Reeves in her post. Before the session ended, the Prime Minister did say something about being 'grateful' to her, but by then it was too late. Afterwards, No 10 declared that Ms Reeves was 'going nowhere', a phrase which, in the circumstances, was either tin-eared or barbed. In an interview, Sir Keir insisted she would continue as Chancellor for the next election and for years beyond. He is in no position to make such a promise. People often complain about the 'bearpit' of PMQs. This week's half hour was certainly uncomfortable to watch, but it did show why such occasions can make a difference. In a few minutes of parliamentary theatre, we got to the heart of the matter. In passing, it is worth pointing out that Mrs Badenoch did well. With wit and concision, she identified Labour's key embarrassments – the second U-turn at the very last moment, the fact that a cost-cutting Bill will now save nothing at all and Sir Keir's problem that 'he does not know what he believes'. She seized the chance to get her own party back on the long road to the economic respectability it so badly lost in government. Whereas Labour had just voted for spending more money, she said, the Conservatives know the nation must 'live within its means'. Sir Keir's capitulation vacates the political ground of prudence, giving the Tories the chance to re-occupy it – and at a time when Reform has decided to become a big-spending party. In the end, those who want to give ever more public money to people who do not want to work are fewer than those who do work and will now almost certainly have to pay higher taxes. On this point, Mrs Badenoch spoke with justified confidence. An oddity caused by the slow Conservative leadership election process last year is that Mrs Badenoch has still not addressed her annual party conference as leader, so the troops do not feel they know their general. Now she has a victory under her belt to celebrate with them. She has won on some other subjects recently, such as the grooming gangs inquiry, but this week was her first big breakthrough. More important right now is what all this means for the Government which we might still have for four more years. Again, PMQs gave useful optics. Most of the time, the camera concentrated on just three people on the front bench – the Prime Minster in the middle, inexpressive as usual; to the right, the crumpled Chancellor, in a blue suit, trying and failing to conceal her distress; to the left, in a striking all-red number, the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, head erect and smiling in a nothing-to-do-with-me sort of way. You could see the future, and why it won't work. It still seems almost incredible that a government only a year old should have cut off its room for future progress so early. There may be a case that the public finances, though bad and getting worse, are not so disastrous that all is lost, but history does suggest that such a serious failure of economic and political will is very hard to come back from. Wilson's Labour government lost confidence after having to devalue the pound in 1967, and lost the election in 1970. Heath's Tories executed their U-turn on free markets and non-intervention in 1972, and lost (twice) in 1974. Labour went 'cap in hand' to the IMF in 1976, and lost to Mrs Thatcher in 1979. John Major's Tories won a general election in April 1992 but had to take the pound out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in September. Tony Blair trounced them in 1997. In some of these cases, notably Major's, the economy did recover, but in all of them the government was seen to have failed in its economic stewardship. The voters duly punished it. This time, the Government has undoubtedly failed. Labour's selling-point to the electorate a year ago was that, unlike the Tories, and particularly the horror story of Liz Truss, it would restore growth and control the public finances with enough discipline that the proceeds of that growth would improve public services. It has taken only 12 months, almost to the day, to discredit all those promises. In reaction, some have criticised the rebel Labour MPs who forced Sir Keir's retreat for their economic illiteracy. Downing Street special advisers speak unattributably to lobby journalists with foul-mouthed quotations about the idiocy and self-indulgence of their party's backbenchers. It is true that social media have made MPs more narcissistic and less loyal to their party. It is also true that failure to rein in welfare spending is – along with the NHS – the road to national ruin. But Sir Keir and his political advisers seem to have a very hazy idea of what it is like to be a member of Parliament. With all aspects of social policy, MPs will have numerous constituents who will be directly affected and will complain to them. Most MPs of the governing party will be prepared to justify unpopular government policy if they can do so as part of a big story of foreseeable recovery or of dire necessity. It is incredibly hard to do so, however, when the policy unexpectedly removes existing money from claimants, and when the overall picture of what the government is trying to do is so contradictory and confusing. In the case of personal independence payments (PIPs), there are a great many scandals (some recently documented by the TaxPayers' Alliance) about how easily people can get the money for inadequate or trumped-up reasons. A government set on persuasion could have dramatised such freeloading to win over voters. It did not. Instead, it suddenly threatened millions of claimants, thwarting reasonable expectations. You don't have to be a Zarah Sultana-style Corbynista to worry. Any decent MP would want to voice those discontents at Westminster. In my lifetime, and therefore in the lifetime of the great majority, no Labour government has ever been able to cope with bad economic conditions. They have been boom-time phenomena, triumphantly so in the case of Tony Blair's first two terms. Sir Keir's administration has quickly reverted to this depressing type, adding a political incompetence that would make anyone weep.
